UN-[TITLED] Peoples: Family Tree

(full credits, photos, bios, and more at I•ma•gine | e•volve)

Curatorial
Project Conceived, Organized and Curated by Berette S Macaulay. Co-commissioned by presenting organizations On the Boards (Seattle) & BRIC (Brooklyn, New York).

Commissioned Creative Collaborators
Benjamin Hunter (Seattle) | Composer, Musician
Margaret Knight, AIA (Seattle) | Architect, Map Design Artist, Spatial Thought-partner
Nia-Amina Minor (Seattle) | Movement Direction
Tom Pearson (Third Rail Projects, New York) | Theater Artist, Choreographic Collaborator, Development Thought-partner
Kamari Bright (Seattle) | Poet
Laurie Allison Wilson, AIA (Seattle) | Architect, Spatial Thought-partner

Performers* and Performance Development
Justin Lynch (Third Rail Projects, New York) | Performer*
Akoiya Harris (Seattle) | Performer*
marco farroni leonardo (Seattle) | Performer*
Katrina Reid (Third Rail Projects, New York)
Rebekah Morin (Third Rail Projects, New York)
Roxanne Kidd (Third Rail Projects, New York)

Community Partners
Stephanie Johnson-Toliver (Black Heritage Society of WA State)
Cynthia Brothers (Vanishing Seattle)
Tara Tamaribuchi (Friends of Inscape & Inscape Arts)
Elisheba Johnson, Inye Wokoma, and Soulma Ayers (Wa Na Wari Seattle)
Teme Wokoma (Sankofa Theater)
Jazmyn Scott (Arte Noir)

Project Geography/Site Activations
INSCAPE Arts Building (International District)
Wa Na Wari – The Peoples House (Central District)

Community Organizations and Partners
Black Heritage Society of WA State | Archive and Research Partner
Inscape and Friends of Inscape | Site and Community Partner
Wa Na Wari | Site Partner
Vanishing Seattle | Research Partner
Sankofa Theatre | Site and Community Partner
Arte Noir | Community Partner
BRIC | Co-Comissioner (Brooklyn, NY)
On the Boards | Co-Commissioner (Seattle, WA)
Jack Straw Cultural Center | Recording Studio for The UN-[TITLED] Project
Third Rail Projects | Production and Admin Support for Tom Pearson
i•ma•gine | e•volve | Admin Support for Berette S Macaulay

Curatorial Statement by Berette S Macaulay

“What is home for you? How does home reside in you? What is it that makes you feel like you belong? What is it that makes you feel like you don’t belong? And what can fill that cup? What can replace that? What relationships do you need?” - Berette S Macaulay

UN-[TITLED] simultaneously interrogates the idea of ownership and what it means to de-gentrify how artists work, inviting new ways of enacting partnerships beyond the creative sector. It is a framework that invites intentional pathways of building accountable and meaningful relationships, especially for socially engaged projects that are informed by lived experiences. How do we learn, co-teach, and become committed actors in securing the community memory of critical sites and the community economies around them?

This project has been built in community by activists, artists, community organizers, developers, architects, and scholars in equally valuable roles, as no one person can attend to the urgencies of gentrification and displacement in a silo. UN-[TITLED] engages the community in immersive performances with shared oral histories, music, and poetry. Through these performances, we are able to foreground communities faced with the constant onslaught of housing and cultural insecurity in cities everywhere. While an art project alone can’t solve gentrification, we strive to offer meaningful encounters across contentious lines of titled land, and indigenous and settler relationships. The inertia of guilt and overwhelm can be transcended through intimate access and connections to actionable ways of participating in reparative organizing.

We hope UN-[TITLED] lives beyond itself to inspire reflexive examination, more nuanced relationships within culturally shifting Seattle neighborhoods, and lasting support of our collaborators and the communities they serve. We seek to connect people who typically reside within the complication of gentrified spaces, or across contentious lines of harm where profits parallel community divestment. This project succeeds only by facilitating additional intervention frameworks, which hopefully are nurtured through relationships beyond this collective action.

A Note to Potential Commissioners

Through partnerships with community-forward venues and presenters in multiple cities, the framework of this project disrupts extractive practices inherent in the colonizer-settler foundations of art-making to create more equitable and sustainable experiences for collaborators, audiences and spaces alike. If you would like to partner with us on this project or commission the work, please reach out to Berette or Tom via our websites I•ma•gine | e•volve and Third Rail Projects.

Commissioning & Funding

UN-[TITLED] is a multisite socially engaged project conceived and organized by commissioning curator Berette S Macaulay. UN-[TITLED] is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation & Development Fund Project co-commissioned by On the Boards (Seattle) in partnership with BRIC (New York). The Creation & Development Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. 

Audio recordings and production made possible through the Artist Residency Programs at Jack Straw Cultural Center.

UN-[TITLED] is also supported by fiscal sponsorship with Northwest Film Forum, and administratively by i•ma•gine | e•volve & Third Rail Projects.

(full list of thanks, credits, photos, bios, and more at I•ma•gine | e•volve)